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As the final wrap-up in our ongoing series of Social Media Management Systems (SMMS) reviews for B2B companies, we’re providing a list of the most popular desktop and web-based systems on the market. We’ve attempted to organize the platforms into categories for entry level users, advanced marketers, enterprise platforms and agency options. The social networks that each systems supports is listed along with the price (if published).

Since most of these tools are relatively new, there’s a wide variety of features, functionality and price among the various options. We encourage anyone in the market for a social media management system to understand the features and functionality you need first, then find a system that matches your requirements and budget.

If you are using any of the SMMS tools listed, please let us know in the comments below what you love about it and can’t live without and what you wish you could change. Also let other readers know if you would recommend the tool in a similar social media environment.

Note: any tool listed in more than one category only has a description the first time it is listed.

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ENTRY LEVEL OPTIONS (Free or under $10/month)

BuzzTrac
Monitor and engage in the millions of social conversations, online news, blogs, videos, and websites that may be buzzing about your brand.Networks Supported: Facebook, TwitterPrice: Free Trial, $9/month Individual plan. Each plan has various limits on numbers of accounts and searches.

CoTweet: Standard Account
CoTweet’s standard edition offers a basic set of Twitter features with advanced team collaboration not typically available in a free social media management product.Networks Supported: TwitterPrice: Free

MediaFunnel
MediaFunnel is the Business Social Media (BSM) platform that will put you firmly in control of your organization’s Twitter and Facebook use.Networks Supported: Facebook, TwitterPrice: Free (2 users/2 channels) or $4.95/month per user/channel

Postling
Use Postling to create content, stay organized and reach your customers. Link up your social media accounts and manage them all in one place.Networks Supported: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, WordPress, BloggerPrice: Free

Sprout Social
Sprout Social was created to help your business harness the power of the social web and turn social connections into loyal customers.Networks Supported: Facebook, Linkedin, TwitterPrice: $9/month for 5 identities

BuddyMedia
The Buddy Media Platform empowers brands to manage Facebook Pages and engage fans.Networks Supported: FacebookPrice: unpublished. The pricing structure is dependent on the number of licensed “seats” on the platform.

BuzzTrac
Monitor and engage in the millions of social conversations, online news, blogs, videos, and websites that may be buzzing about your brand.Networks Supported: Facebook, TwitterPrice: $29/month Business Plan. Plans have various limits on numbers of accounts and searches.

Shoutlet
Shoutlet is a multi-user application that helps users build, engage, and measure their social media marketing communications. Shoutlet includes widgets for sharing across various properties, multi-account management, reporting and analytics and Social CRM integration with Facebook.Networks Supported: Facebook, TwitterPrice: Unpublished

SocialTALK
SocialTALK is an innovative tool that allows brands to more effectively create, publish and measure their content strategy and posting schedule. SocialTALK makes the workflow process of posting content much more manageable, efficient and effective.Networks Supported: Facebook, TwitterPricing: Unpublished

Sprout Social: Business Plan
Sprout Social was created to help your business harness the power of the social web and turn social connections into loyal customersNetworks Supported: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Foursquare, YelpPrice: $49/month

StrongMail Social Studio
StrongMail Social Studio is a social media marketing platform for the professional marketer that features a referral marketing platform, social sharing tool and campaign management application – all in one solution.Networks Supported: Facebook, TwitterPrice: Unpublished

CoTweet: Enterprise Account
Created for medium to large organizations, CoTweet Enterprise supports Twitter and Facebook and is ideal for brands that are heavily engaged in social media for ongoing marketing, brand-building and customer support.Networks Supported: Twitter, FacebokPrice: Unpublished on site, but other sources have said it starts at $1500/month

Spredfast
Spredfast is an enterprise-level solution that empowers businesses to manage and communicate across all their social media channels. Read our Spredfast review.Networks Supported: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, MySpace, SlideShare and multiple blogging platformsPrice: Based on number of initiatives

Sprinklr
Sprinklr helps brands tap into the power of social media by providing a comprehensive SoMe marketing platform.Networks Supported: Facebook, TwitterPrice: Invitation only

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AGENCY OPTIONS

Although many social media management systems have plans that could be used for brands or agencies, these options were specifically mentioned as being agency solutions. Agencies should review all Advanced and Enterprise options as well as these Agency options to find software that matches your requirements.

Using HootSuite’s social media dashboard, teams can collaboratively schedule updates to Twitter, Facebook (individual accounts and pages), Linkedin, WordPress and other social networks via web, desktop or mobile platforms. Hootsuite provides campaign tracking results as a summary or by individual message.

Benefits:

HootSuite is one of the more popular dashboard applications, but many users may not be taking full advantage of its features. Over the past few months lots of new functions have been added that make HootSuite an option for nearly any level user.

Some features that users should explore (if you haven’t already) include its ability to publish to multiple platforms, schedule updates, team collaboration tools, task assigning, real-time result tracking and web analytics integration.

Intended User:

HootSuite has 3 price plans – a free Basic version (ad-supported) which provides up to 5 social networks, a Pro plan for $5.99/month that includes unlimited social networks, feeds, stats and Google Analytics integration, and an Enterprise level plan with a multitude of features for $1499/month.

The basic plan is recommended for those looking to get started with a social media management system, and upgrading it to a Pro account will provide a lot of features at a very reasonable price. Power users will want to explore the Enterprise level and compare it to other top-tier SMMS options.

Sendible bills itself as a “one-stop-shop” for all your marketing needs. It allows you to manage multiple social channels, email, SMS and blog accounts all from one interface. Sendible supports Facebook status and page updates, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Google Buzz, WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr and a bunch more. It provides the ability to share posts from your blogs and RSS feeds, schedule messages, respond to feedback, and provides reporting on clicks, views, shares and message reaction.

Benefits:

The support for marketing channels other than social media makes Sendible unique in this space- its more of a campaign management system than just a social media management system. For those that want an all-in-one service this may be an attractive option.

The scheduling in Sendible allows users to set up reminders for sending messages to yourself, has options for recurring messages and has a drag-and-drop calendar that displays your scheduled content.

The monitoring shows comments, responses or feedback on your posts. Monitoring and reporting allows you to track the effectiveness of your campaign and drill into the results to determine how recipients responded to your message.

Intended User:

Sendible seems to be targeting marketers, small businesses and agencies that need a little bit of everything. It has 5 pricing plans that range from free to $40 per month. There’s also a $500 white label plan intended for agencies. Each plan has limits for sending, contacts, and accounts, so review the price structure to see what works best for you. There’s also pay-as-you-go pricing options available.

Spredfast is an enterprise-level solution that empowers businesses to manage and communicate across all their social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, MySpace, SlideShare and multiple blogging platforms. Spredfast focuses on proving the value of social media by allowing you to measure the effectiveness of each conversation.

Benefits:

Spredfast has all the features you want out of an enterprise level application. You can create roles and set permissions, assign tasks, schedule content posts, create keyword searches, analyze sentiment, and measure your results. Spredfast has a lot of Facebook functionality including support for Events, Photos, Video and Insights. We recommend you review their Features page for a full understand of the breadth of features in the Spredfast application.

Intended User:

Spredfast is a sophisticated application intended for businesses that need to manage a wide range of social channels and blogs, assign and manage roles and tasks, and receive detailed reporting on the effectiveness of their social campaigns. Spredfast also has a white label option for agencies. Pricing is based on the number of initiatives (think “campaigns”) you require and they do offer a 30 day free trial.

Argyle Social allows you to track all your social activity and reply from within your Argyle account. You can optimize your social media marketing effectiveness by keeping tabs on which content, properties, and people are driving interactions online. Argyle nearly begs you to prove the ROI of your campaigns- it specializes in conversion tracking and it integrates with Google Analytics.

Intended User:

Argyle is only several months old, and although its a relative new-comer it has all the functionality you’d expect from an established SMMS. At this time Argyle offers accounts targeted at marketers, and it has Agency and Enterprise level features coming soon. Argyle is priced at an attractive $149/month, which makes it a viable option for marketers who want more features than a free application offers but don’t need the more sophisticated features or the price tag of an enterprise level solution. There is also a 30 day free trial.

To recap, a Social Media Management System allows social media teams to manage multiple social accounts from one application. Typically a SMMS will enable users to set roles and permissions, aggregate content, publish it, and manage and measure social media activity.

The Awareness Social Marketing Hub lets serious marketing teams extend their brand messaging and campaigns to social networks. The Hub allows marketers to publish content, manage responses, engage directly with social contacts and measure results across all their social channels.

On the publishing side, Awareness supports the scheduled publishing of text, photos and videos to multiple channels including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, WordPress, YouTube, Foursquare and social communities. It includes a permissioning system, incorporates workflow functionality and has audit trails for publishing control and accountability.

You can manage all your content through the Social Marketing Hub, and easily update and delete social media content. The Hub keeps a record of all published content including date/time, destination and publisher. And you can engage with social contacts directly from within the application. Respond to comments collaboratively, flag comments for review by teammates, and delete comments from social channels. Your entire team can join the conversation.

You can measure success by seeing how often content is viewed, favorited, shared or commented on. Sentiment measurement is also included, so you can easily find and react to both negative and positive user comments. The Social Marketing Hub also provides trend reporting so you can see how content performs over time.

Benefits:

Awareness is currently one of the more feature-rich SMMS applications available and provides support for a variety of social channels. The reports provide a consolidated view of all social media activity, and the range of reporting options enables you to view top-level or detailed metrics. The reporting will allow marketers to build comprehensive social media strategies based on their ability to manage how each channel and asset performs.

The Social Marketing Hub interface is streamlined and the learning curve should be minimal for anyone already managing social content. Awareness releases updates on a regular basis, so the application is constantly evolving and improving.

Intended User:

The Social Marketing Hub is clearly a sophisticated enterprise-level application. A typical Awareness client is a large organization that has a team of marketers creating, publishing and measuring social media content. Awareness clients include Sony, Kodak, McDonald’s, Hershey’s and Best Buy.

If you are part of social marketing team and feel that you don’t have the tools you need to centralize and organize social content management and reporting, then the Awareness Social Marketing Hub is likely a great option. Prices start at $1,000/month for 5 users/5 channels.

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As the need for managing social media evolves, so too do the technologies that help you manage your accounts. One of the most significant developments in managing social channels are Social Media Management Systems (SMMS). They are quickly becoming a required tool for B2B social media marketers.

A Social Media Management System allows social media teams to manage multiple social accounts from one application. Typically a SMMS will enable users to set roles and permissions, aggregate content, publish it, and manage and measure social media activity. As David Armano said, “Social Media Management Systems are un-sexy, but every large company will end up using them.”

On the content side, a SMMS will usually provide some level of workflow control, approval process and publishing to multiple channels at once or through scheduled posts. Having that level of control is key for large organizations as the ability to time posts across all channels allows marketers to deliver information in an organized fashion.

Once content is published, a SMMS will provide an aggregate overview of the social activity including views and comments. Managing comments or feedback can be handled through the SMMS in a team approach. This can ensure the response is handled by the appropriate person or department.

Determining success metrics across multiple social channels is currently a problem many marketers face. A SMMS may help alleviate this headache, as many tools provide some level of reporting or metrics across multiple channels. Some also include trend reporting, which allow you to view performance over time, and some may include integration with web analytics packages for metrics and conversion tracking.

In the upcoming weeks, SocialMediaB2B will take a look at several Social Media Management Systems and provide an overview of how the top SMMS tools can help your B2B marketing efforts. If you are a developer of an SMMS application please leave us a comment so we can consider your system in our review. If you are a user of a Social Media Management System please let us know what you like (or dislike) about the application you currently use.